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Figure 1. ‘Big Tex’ Chris Ware
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Chris Ware admittedly stated that he’d “always been a parrot”, :When I was a younger I was always trying to find ways of working that come close to the feelings that I was aiming for. ‘Gasoline Alley’ by Frank King. Ware took inspiration from King’s work, on how to compose an overall page, how to transpose shape and time visually by using one structure page containing only one theme or story, informally known as a ‘accord’.
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Figure 2. Gasoline Alley- Frank King
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In response to Chris Ware’s ‘raccord’ style of work I created the image below. I drew a large town house cross-section, and within each box drew the house in different time zones. n order to make the interior look more interesting I created two characters, and the house follows the life of two people. It begins with the couple moving into the house together, followed by their wedding, an argument resulting in the wife leaving, a pregnancy, their child growing up, their child as a teenager, the couple when they are old and finally the death of her husband. I found this task interesting, and challenging to initially invent an idea which would work both with space and with time. Once I had chosen this the next difficulty was dividing like Chris Ware demonstrates the moments in the character lives which are significant.
I then decided to colour in my work using ‘Photoshop’, adapting Chris Ware’s colour schemes. Ware using secondary based colors which are lush and immensely subtle, perfectly calibrating the mood of his comics. Ware comments that he wants “the pages to be as beautiful as I can possibly make them. I want that to contradict the stories and the frustrations of the characters".
For colour inspiration I looked at Chris Ware’s ‘New Yorker Magazine’, in particular the image below. I colours stood out to me in particular in this piece, as I felt they could adapt well to my response, for example the warm oranges links well with the uplifting scenes and the summer scenes, and purple and grey colours work well for the gloomier scenes and with winter, and finally the vibrant red and blue work well in making the characters and certain symbolic images stand out, making it easier to read the comic.
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| Figure 3: Chris Ware’s The New |
After picking the colours from Chris Ware’s example I began coloring in my work. Below is a table showing the different colour combinations I used.
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Colour sample from Adobe Photoshop CC 2015.5
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Colour sample from Adobe Photoshop CC 2015.5
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Overall, I am satisfied with the outcome, I think that I could have drawn the figures better and possible have added extra detail, but have learnt a lot about colour, and the way you can use a single image to showcase a period of time rather than several, will in turn become extremely useful in y own practice.
References
- "Behance". Behance.net. N.p., 2016. Web. 7 Oct. 2016.
- "The Comics Reporter". Comicsreporter.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 7 Oct. 2016.
- Itsorensen | Chris Ware". itsorensen. N.p., 2016. Web. 7 Oct. 2016.
Bibliography
Books
Ware, Chris. Mcsweeney's Quarterly Concern. San Francisco: McSweeney's Quarterly, 2004. Print.
McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics. New York: HarperPerennial, 1994. Print.
Raeburn, Daniel K. Chris Ware. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004. Print.
Oliveros, Chris. Drawn & Quarterly. Montréal, Quebec: Drawn & Quarterly, 2001. Print.
Websites
"Cartoonist Chris Ware Talks About Tragedy And Comics To Aida Edemariam". the Guardian. N.p., 2005. Web. 30 Sept. 2016.
Jacobs, Dale. "Lettering: Visualizing Sound In Comics". Uwindsorcomics.blogspot.co.uk. N.p., 2009. Web. 30 Sept. 2016.
Wivel, Matthias. "Interview With Chris Ware Part 1 Of 2 « The Comics Journal". Classic.tcj.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 30 Sept. 2016.
"Chris Ware". Drawn & Quarterly. N.p., 2013. Web. 30 Sept. 2016.
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